


A Spinner's Truth

by loveheartlover



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Blind Character, Fairy!Kurt, Happy Ending, M/M, Violence, fairy!blaine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 01:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4416257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveheartlover/pseuds/loveheartlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A spell is sweeping over the forest and killing the fairies who fly there. Kurt refuses to stand back and watch his people die, so he sets off to see the fabled Spinner, in the hopes that together they can save the forest.</p>
<p>------------------------------<br/>The Spinner, Kurt decided, was an asshole.</p>
<p>There was no need for him to live so far from the forest. At the very least, he could have had the courtesy to lay a trail to his home. A few lights, perhaps, or a nice big arrow that could point Kurt in the right direction. Instead, Kurt had been traipsing back and forth through the grass from sunrise until high noon, methodically parting the grass and looking for any holes in the ground, or upturned baskets, or anything really that might hint that a fairy lived nearby. Pavarotti had flown with him at first, but he kept getting tangled in the grass, so Kurt sent him to circle above and keep an eye out for danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Spinner's Truth

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written in a day. The highest of praises to tarabottiwrites, who drew the most amazing art which inspired the whole thing. A huge thank you to Em, who helped me come up with the beginnings of a plot and inspired the name of the Spinner, as well as offering her beta skills at the absolute last minute. Thank you to tchrgleek for sitting in the doc with me, to Lorna for cheering me on, and to everyone who wished me luck when I set out on this adventure.

 

The spell took no hostages. By the half moon, almost the entire population had been shut down. Fairies fell from the skies in their dozens, wings dried up and bodies curled in on themselves. There was no coming back. The first light of dawn withered the fairies who fell in the night, turning their icy torsos to dust and scattering them to the four winds.

It took the sunflower fields first, and moved swiftly through the corn, wheat, and hay. Every morning, Kurt awoke to a new list of the fallen posted on the Old Oak. The Seven Elders predicted that the spell would reach the outer edges of the forest by the next moon phase, and take the entire area by the new moon. Remaining fairies were advised to evacuate to the central clearing in the forest, but many were resigned to staying in their homes.

There was no outrunning the inevitable.

The fairies that did move were the youngest, or those who had children. The ones who hadn’t experienced enough of the world to give up hope yet. The ones who had something left to fight for.

Kurt moved to the central clearing at his father’s request, after they lost Finn in the third wave.  Burt and Carole took up positions on the newly formed Council, made up of the few left fighting and the Elders, but Kurt had little interest in politics. Action plans were made and scrapped, and his family returned home every evening with another tale of failure. Kurt was willing to do whatever it might take to help stop the spell, but he didn’t think the answer could be found by sitting around and bickering about who was to blame for the spell in the first place.

Instead, he distracted the children. Songs were taught, games played, stories told… and all were promptly forgotten whenever the next list of losses were posted.

So the children stopped listening.

Kurt gave the Council two more days, and when his father came home with a bowed back, weighed down by the knowledge that there would be no future for his kind, Kurt took matters into his own hands.

“This might be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done,” Burt said, handing Kurt a water pouch.

“We don’t have a choice. There are eight dawns until the forest falls, and I can’t just stand back and watch it happen.”

“The Council are looking for a solution.”

“The Council _have_ a solution, but they’re blind to it!”

“You’re going to get yourself killed, Kurt. The Elders rejected our proposal of going to the Spinner for a reason.”

Kurt tied a small sack to his waist, and flexed his wings. “The Elders are cowards.”

“Cowards or not, the Spinner is dangerous. I’ve already lost one son, Kurt, I can’t lose you as well.” Wrapping a hand around Kurt’s wrist, Burt pulled him into a hug that squeezed the breath from both of their lungs. He clung to Kurt like it was the last time he’d get to hold him. “Just… promise me you’ll come back.”

“I’ll be back by the new moon. Promise. Tell Carole not to worry, will you?”

Burt snorted. “Sure, that’ll go down a treat. Come on, I have something to show you.”

Kurt followed Burt up the middle of the hollowed out tree they’d made their home. The narrow steps that lined the trunk were sticky with sap, which dripped onto Kurt’s wings as he walked.  It was on journeys like these that he missed his old home, a smooth, carved out stump, surrounded by long grass, in which he had played games of chase and hide and seek as a child. Cleaning sap off of his wings and picking splinters out of his hands were poor pastimes in comparison.

Burt led them out of the second highest knot on the trunk, which Carole had turned into a door on their third night in their new home. It led onto a branch which Kurt had thought to be empty, nothing more than a platform from which to take off when looking to gain height in flight.

It appeared that in the time since Kurt’s last visit, Burt had given the branch a greater purpose.

A bird’s nest lay between the branch and its neighbour. It was fairy made, Kurt could tell, the twigs woven together in a manner too intricate for even the cleverest of birds, built to maximise security and make the most of minimal resources. Birds were not fairy friends, so Kurt approached the nest gingerly, only doing so in the first place because Burt was beckoning him over. The entrance to the nest was a carefully crafted hole, larger than Kurt but not big enough for their greatest predators to fit inside. No hawk or owl could have made their home here.

“Dad?”

“Look inside,” Burt said softly. “It’s okay.”

Kurt hovered over the entrance, trying to peer in, but it was too dark for him to see without getting closer. He took a deep breath and lowered himself in, waiting for a beak to pull at his feet, but nothing happened. He blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. The floor beneath his feet was soft, nothing like what he had expected from the nest’s outer appearance. Kurt crouched and ran his fingers along the floor. His initial suspicion of feathers proved incorrect. Instead his fingers became tangled in strands of moss, a thick layer of which lined the entire nest.

A soft chirp reminded Kurt that he wasn’t here to admire the architecture, and he focused narrowed eyes on the centre of the moss. Laying there was a small, yellow bird. Its wings were tucked in close to its body, and Kurt could tell from the downy feathers on the floor around it that it had only grown into its adult feathers recently.

The floor dipped, and Kurt turned to look at his father, who had dropped down beside him.

“What’s going on?”

“Carole found him. He’d fallen out of his nest, and a fox was creeping up on him. We brought him back and built a nest around him, fixed up his leg wounds, and he’s been here ever since. He’s not dangerous. We thought once he gained confidence he’d leave, but he just pops out for a quick fly around and then comes back at moonrise.”

“You have a pet bird,” Kurt said, voice faint. “Dad, that’s not normal. What if he gets a bit peckish and takes a bite out of you?”

“I told you, he’s not dangerous. If he was going to attack, he’d have done it by now.”

Kurt wasn’t so sure. From his, admittedly limited, experience with birds, there was no such thing as an off limits meal. Honestly, when being chased through the air with a gaping beak and sharp talons behind you, it was easy to see where the dinosaur connection came from.

“I want you to take him with you.”

_“What?”_

“The first thing the spell does is freeze up your wings. If you take him with you, even if the spell gets to you, you’ll be able to fly away. You’ll have until dawn to save yourself. I know it might not seem like much, but if you take Pav, he can buy you a few more hours. Don’t underestimate how important that could be.”

“Pav?”

Burt looked down sheepishly. “Pavarotti. Like the human? Carole used to live near a human who would play his music, she grew quite fond of him.”

“You named the bird. Of course you did,” Kurt sighed. “Look, he might not attack you and Carole, but you two saved him. I don’t have that kind of connection. The second we get out of your line of sight, how do you know he won’t turn on me?”

“I don’t,” Burt admitted, “but you’re about to fly to see one of the most dangerous fairies in the known world. If you can’t handle Pav, the Spinner will turn you to stone before you get within a hundred feet of him.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I’m just trying to make you understand what you’re letting yourself in for,” Burt said. “It’s not too late to back out, Kurt. The Elders and Council are going to find an answer, we always do.”

“At what cost? In a handful of sunrises there won’t be anyone left to save, Dad. If there’s even the slightest chance that the Spinner can help us, we’re fools not to take it.”

Kurt grimaced as he ran a hand down Pavarotti’s back, eyes fixed on the bird’s. He certainly didn’t _seem_ threatening. Burt wouldn’t have suggested taking him if he thought doing so would put Kurt in more danger. Kicking at the moss, Kurt crossed his arms and glowered at his feet. “I’ll take the stupid bird.”

 

* * *

 

Pavarotti, it transpired, was an _awful_ flier. When they took off from the nest, Kurt had expected the bird to fly ahead and refuse to listen to Kurt’s instructions. He hadn’t expected Pav to spend the first ten minutes of their journey struggling to fly in a straight line, crashing into the tops of trees, and at one point getting distracted by his own reflection in a pond and diving straight into the damn thing. “You’re worse than a toddler with their first set of wings, pull yourself together! The Elders said that if we fly east, we’ll reach the Spinner by sundown. We aren’t going to get there if you keep _crashing_.”

If the spell did hit him, Kurt decided, he’d rather take his chances on foot. Getting on the back of Pavarotti and attempting to reach safety would be a far greater death wish.

Eventually the bird did level out, but that brought its own problems. He was young, and playful in a way that Kurt hadn’t expected. Pav would fly ahead for a few moments, and then double back to loop around Kurt, chirping away happily as he went. Every so often he’d butt his head into Kurt’s side. The first time he did it, Kurt had careered upwards, thinking that the bird had decided it was snack time. Now Kurt was used to it, and just shoved the bird back. It was almost like Pavarotti was trying to engage him in some weird game, coaxing him into some form of play fight. Kurt hadn’t played in such a way since his adult antennae grew in, too busy trying to prove that he was more than just Burt Hummel’s disappointment of a son.

Even in fairy terms, Kurt was odd. His coloring was too bright, the vivid amber of his wings and blue of his feathery antennae drawing too much attention for him to be safe flying around humans. Forest fairies were meant to blend in. Burt’s wings were a dark leafy green, his antennae brown, and if he held still it was almost impossible to tell he was there, unless you knew what to look for. Carole wasn’t a forest fairy, but even she didn’t stand out as much as Kurt did. An ex-rosebush fairy, she was built to blend in more human surroundings. Her wings were the rouge of rose petals, but her antennae were shaded closer to dirty brick. She was by no means as invisible as her husband, but in the fall she was a perfect match once the leaves began to turn.

There were no blue leaves for Kurt to hide amongst, and his wings were much too bright to be capable of blending into the russet or orange of those that fell.

Pavarotti butted into Kurt’s side once more, but this time, he clipped Kurt’s head with his wing as he flew back. It was almost like he was reprimanding Kurt for getting distracted mid-flight. “You’re one to talk,” Kurt said, rolling onto his back as they flew on so he could stretch his arms out above him. “There’s nobody around to clog the skies, and unlike some people, I can fly consistently in one direction.”

Pav hit out at him again.

“Pavarotti, quit it! Dad might like you, but that doesn’t mean that I have--”

Before Kurt could finish his sentence, Pavarotti had caught hold of his waist in his feet, and was frantically dragging Kurt down. Kurt wrestled against his grip, curses flying as he tried to get his face out of Pav’s feathery chest so he could see where they were going. As quickly as he’d started to fly them down, Pav pulled up, wings beating hard against a sudden gust of wind. Kurt finally got his face free, and turned to look at what was causing the bird such distress.

In front of them, towering up from the valley beneath the vast hills that marked the edge of the fairy fields, was a thin, smoky gray house. Kurt couldn’t focus against the wind whipping around his face to see the finer details, but he was certain of one thing--they were approaching it far too fast. Pavarotti seemed to realise that Kurt had stopped fighting him, and so released him from his vice of a grip. They were both now struggling to slow down, the wind thrusting them towards the house and then away from it, carrying them along with no interest in their safety or goals. It finally sent them plummeting down, still dragging them in the direction of the house, but it was taking them through a series of hedges. Kurt was by no means pleased to be getting face after face full of leaves, but they _were_ slowing the two of them down to the point where they were eventually left without enough momentum to get them through the final hedge into the garden.

Stranded in the middle of a thick hedge of thorns, Kurt did a quick damage assessment. Aside from a few scratches, and the fact that having his heart beating a million times a second couldn’t be healthy, he had escaped unharmed.

“Pavarotti? Where are you?” Kurt called, tucking his wings as close to his body as they could get before climbing through the hedge in search of his companion. A thorn through the wing was definitely an experience he could do without.

With every passing second without an answering chirp, Kurt’s anxiety creeped up another level. Okay, so Pav couldn’t fly in a straight line, and he tried to engage Kurt in childish games, and to be perfectly frank, his manners were _atrocious_ , but he had tried to stop Kurt ending up as a fairy pancake. The least Kurt could do was keep the damn thing alive until they got home.

Kurt kept climbing, until he finally broke through the last layer of leaves and could stand atop the hedge. The sun was setting behind him, casting long shadows in the overgrown garden. Creepy didn’t even begin to cover it.

Kurt didn’t have time to dwell, as something familiar knocked into his side. Pavarotti hovered beside him, not quite daring to land on the hedge himself, and Kurt couldn’t help but laugh with relief as he pushed Pav back. “Bad bird,” he said, trying to sound stern despite the laughter wracking his entire body and making his wings quiver with each intake of breath, “no going silent on me. If you’re going to help me do this, you stay close. Got it?”

With one hand resting on Pavarotti’s side to steady him, Kurt made his way to the very innermost edge of the hedge, teetering on the balls of his feet as he examined the garden. He wasn’t sure who lived in the house--it was much too big to be a fairy residence, but no word had come that a human had moved so close to the fields--but he was certain the Spinner must be nearby. His dad had sworn the Spinner resided a day’s flight away, and there was nothing of substance in the area besides the house.

“Okay,” Kurt said. “We’ll set up camp at the base of the hedge tonight, and go on the hunt for the Spinner tomorrow. I don’t fancy flying through that grass in the dark, we’ve had enough excitement for one day. Meeting a snake would just be one adventure too far.”

The mere mention of a snake had Pav shuddering, so Kurt took his silence as an agreement to the plan, and guided the two of them back to the ground.

* * *

 

The Spinner, Kurt decided, was an asshole.

There was no need for him to live so far from the forest. At the very least, he could have had the courtesy to lay a trail to his home. A few lights, perhaps, or a nice big arrow that could point Kurt in the right direction. Instead, Kurt had been traipsing back and forth through the grass from sunrise until high noon, methodically parting the grass and looking for any holes in the ground, or upturned baskets, or anything really that might hint that a fairy lived nearby. Pavarotti had flown with him at first, but he kept getting tangled in the grass, so Kurt sent him to circle above and keep an eye out for danger.

Kurt wouldn’t put it past whoever lived in the house to have something stupid for a pet. A cat, maybe, or a lizard, or one of those yappy not-wolves.

Kurt decided that high noon was the right time for a break, and flew up to join Pav above the grass. Looking down at what little progress he had made so far, he groaned. The garden hadn’t seemed this large last night. He was barely a fifth of the way through, and he was exhausted. At this rate he wouldn’t even have _found_ the damn Spinner by the time the spell took the forest.

“Time for a new plan,” Kurt announced. “Fairies that live this close to humans normally use them to get food. If we look at the house, we might be able to follow a path back to wherever Mr Oh So Secretive lives.”

“Or you could just ask nicely?”

Kurt was not proud of the noise that left his mouth, a weird cross between a scream and an eep that startled Pavarotti and made them both drop a foot in the air in surprise. Pavarotti regained the height faster than Kurt, and began to flap erratically around him. Kurt suspected he was trying to protect him, which would be very sweet, if it weren’t for the fact that Pav was facing the opposite direction to the man the voice belonged to.

Sat cross-legged on the windowsill was a gray-tinged fairy, playing with the cuff of his coat sleeve. There was something off about him, besides his lack of color, that Kurt couldn’t quite put his finger on. Pav had finally got his bearings and had turned on the man, chattering away angrily in a manner reminiscent of a child throwing a tantrum, but the fairy seemed largely unperturbed.

“Control your beast,” he said, “I’m no threat.”

“Are you the Spinner?”

The man scoffed. “You must be one of the forest folk. My name is Blaine, but yes, if it’s the Spinner you came in search of, I’m the one you’re looking for.”

“You...aren’t called Spinner?”  
“Of course not, what kind of name is that? Your kind needed something to call me that would make their children tremble, so they wouldn’t come too close. I certainly didn’t choose to be known as Spinner.”

Kurt frowned, motioning for Pavarotti to stay close as he flew towards the windowsill. As he got closer, he realised what had been disturbing him about the man. The only real color to him was the bright yellow of his eyes, but the color wasn’t restricted to his iris. There were no whites to his eyes, or pupils, and he didn’t react to Kurt flying closer. In his hands Kurt could see a very fine thread, and he realised that this is what the man had been playing with before--not the fabric of his coat.

“Why Spinner?”

Blaine smirked, lifting the thread twined around his fingers. “Use your imagination. Come, if you’ve sought me out despite the stories, you must have a good reason. It’s best not to stay near the windows for long, if the witch scents you, you’ll be sorry.”

“Witch?” Kurt echoed, panic rising in his chest. It was a witch who had cast the spell in the first place. The Elders said she lived on the northern border, near the ice lakes. If she had moved without the Elders noticing, there had to be something more than the killing spell at work.

Blaine was scaling down the side of the house, ignoring his wings in favor of abseiling, using the thread to support his weight. Kurt waited for it to snap and send him tumbling, but it held strong. “Are you coming or not?” Blaine called as he disappeared beneath the grass, the fronds parting the only indication that he hadn’t got a secret hidey-hole beneath the dirt that he’d slid right into.

“Come on, Pav,” Kurt said, starting to fly down. Pavarotti didn’t follow, chirping anxiously and flying back and forth. “It’ll be fine, he doesn’t seem that dangerous. Maybe the Elders got it wrong, they do like their stories.”

Still Pavarotti refused to fly lower, and Kurt was left with just one card to play. Luckily, it was also his best.

“Okay, I guess I’m just going to have to go all by myself,” Kurt shrugged. Pavarotti ducked and then flew up again, warring with himself. “Yup, just me. All alone. Going without protection. Into the den of the Spinner. Nobody to help me if he ends up being dangerous.” The chirping was much louder now. “All by myself. Lonely old me heading into danger…” Kurt was beneath the grass now, but he took the opportunity to thrust his head back above the surface and bellow “alone!” as he sunk back down.

There was a blur of yellow feathers, and Pav was under the grass with him. If a bird could look royally peeved at a situation, that was Pavarotti as he stalked across the ground beside Kurt, chirping indignantly whenever the grass got caught on his wings or tail and he had to wait for Kurt to free him. “Oh yeah, take the bird,” Kurt muttered under his breath, “great idea, Dad.”

Blaine was stood beside a crack in the wall of the house, leaning back against the concrete as Kurt approached. “You took your time.”

“Some of us have baggage,” Kurt retorted, jerking his head at Pavarotti. “You could have helped.”

“Could have,” Blaine said, “but you sound so cute when you’re angry.” He gestured at the crack. “After you.”

“You want us to go inside the witch’s house?” Kurt asked, incredulous. “I have enough problems without adding an encounter with a witch to the list.”

“She doesn’t like to go in the cellar, and besides, the sun is up. She’ll be sleeping until moonrise unless you wake her, so we have plenty of time.”

 

* * *

 

For a supposedly cruel (yet admittedly charming) man, Blaine had an unusual home. Kurt wasn’t sure what he had expected. A home like the ones fairies back in the forest had, perhaps, built from nature and full of warmth. Blaine definitely hadn’t opted for warmth, but there were no skulls lining the walls either.

He had made his home on one of the large planks of wood that stretched across the ceiling, a space too small for a human to crawl through, but a good size for a fairy. The edges were marked with spider webs, and as Kurt watched Blaine move around his home, he realised they were more than just decoration. Blaine used the webs to keep him on the wood, as if he couldn’t see where the floor ended. Small strings linked the limited furniture together, and Blaine had one hand on the string at all times, which he used to navigate around the room. Kurt had to duck under the webs, and Pav had taken one look at the room and sat himself in the corner, unwilling to get caught up in the sticky silk.

“Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly,” Kurt said under his breath as he looked around. Blaine laughed.

“I’m no more spider than you are, fairy. Have a seat, and tell me what brings you so far from your forest.”

“How do you know I’m a fairy?” Kurt couldn't help asking. Blaine was blind, that was clear now, but that only made Kurt more confused.

“You step lightly, and I can feel your wings.”

At Kurt’s silence, Blaine sighed and pulled a chair out. “Sit. If you lose one sense, your others eventually heighten. I’ve had a long time to perfect my techniques, fairy.”

“Why do you say fairy like it’s an insult? You’re a fairy too, aren’t you?”

Blaine’s patience had evidently worn thin. “What do you want?”

“A witch has placed a spell on the realm. The fairies in the fields are dead, and the forest is starting to fall. There’s almost no-one left, and we have nowhere to go. The Elders stories say you have magick in your own right, so I came to ask for your help. We need you to stop the spell from spreading any further.”

For a long while, Blaine was silent. Kurt used the time to examine his living space further, looking for any clues as to where Blaine had come from. There were no signs of other fairies living nearby, nor any spiders despite the abundance of webs. He presumed Blaine’s silence was because he was thinking of a way to help, so when Blaine stood abruptly and began to pull at the wood directly above their heads, Kurt was understandably perplexed. Before he could ask what Blaine was doing, Blaine had forced the wood down enough that there was a gap for the two of them to squeeze through.

“Come on.”

“What?”

“Come _on_ ,” Blaine snapped. “You have no clue what’s really going on, do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’ll be faster for me to show you. Your beast will have to stay here, he’s too big for this trip. We need to be in and out quickly, if the witch wakes we’ll be done for.”

Kurt hesitantly climbed through the gap, turning to help pull Blaine through without thinking about it. Blaine shrugged off his hands once they were stood, and began walking towards the far wall, counting under his breath as he went.

An inch from the wall, he stopped and took off, flying to the ceiling. Kurt followed close behind, looking around his went. The witch kept her house dark, the windows covered by a black fabric to keep the light out. They appeared to be in a hallway, and Blaine was leading them towards the only light source in the vicinity--a fire burning below a large pot in the kitchen. Kurt flew to a halt in the doorway, hands flying to cover his mouth as he gagged. Blaine didn’t say anything, just stayed hovering in the doorway beside him, waiting, one hand tight on Kurt’s waist to keep him from flying in any further.

The walls of the kitchen were covered in shelves, and lining the shelves were hundreds of glass jars, stacked five or six deep in some places. The shelves were buckling under the weight of the jars, and there were even towers of jars in the corners of the room where the witch had run out of room.

“She’s not killing the fairies,” Blaine said, rather unnecessarily.

In each jar lay a small, crumpled body. The rising and falling of their chests were the only sign that the fairies inside were still alive, they lay so still.

“I don’t understand,” Kurt whispered. “I’ve seen it happen. The bodies turn to dust and scatter.”

“No,” Blaine said. “They turn to dust and are carried here by the wind. She catches each dust pile in a jar at dawn, and they reform into their original state.”

“Why aren’t they trying to escape?”

“You see the liquid boiling in that pot? The vapors have a soporific effect. She keeps them in a state of near-sleep. Besides, even if they were awake enough to attempt an escape, they couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Kurt asked, squinting at the fairies on the shelf closest to the door. Blaine didn’t need to reply. No sooner had the words left his mouth, than Kurt realized what was wrong.

The fairies were wingless.

Each crippled figure had dried blood marks on the backs of their clothes where their wings should have been.

“She plucks them, as soon as the body reforms.”

“What is she doing with them?” Kurt asks, aghast. A fairy without their wings was no fairy at all. In some of the more violent lands, Kurt had even heard of wingless fairies being put down by their own kind. They called it a mercy killing. It normally happened in the human cities, where being flightless meant imminent death, from being crushed underfoot or run over by one of their metal beasts. Kurt’s land certainly didn’t kill the wingless, but they were the subject of much pity. Most were killed off by wild animals, or by falling from great heights. Winglessness was a death sentence, in one way or another.

“I don’t know.”

Kurt’s head was spinning, and he pressed his palm to his forehead to try and slow it down. “I don’t… How do you know all of this? You can’t see, how could you know any of this?” His voice was rising, and he forced Blaine’s hand from his waist, fluttering backwards. “Are you helping her? Is that why the Elders warn us against you? You’re some vile witch’s _pet_.”

“I’m no such thing, and keep your voice down,” Blaine hissed urgently. “I _listen_ , the witch likes to talk to herself. I live beneath her floorboards, for fae’s sake. Do you think I enjoy hearing her talk about how she catches your kind? It’s awful, but I can’t save them! By the time they are here, they’re as good as dead.”

“You could try to help them!” Kurt argued. “You don’t even try, you just sit around and let it happen! You’re awful, no wonder the Elders are glad you left!”

“You think I chose to leave?” Blaine said. “You really are clueless. I was _banished_ you stupid, stupid boy. Your Elders are corrupt and fearful of change, as soon as they realised I could cast, they ordered me from the realms!”

“You deserved it.”

“I was _four_.”

Kurt froze. “What?”

“Your precious Elders sent a child away from their home, because they were afraid that one day they might lose their position to me. The forest is a backwards place. Your kind speak in tongues that aren’t recognised amongst the population. Do you know how to write? To read?”

“It’s not our place,” Kurt said, but quietly now.

“It _is_ your place. The Elders are not some divine force that should never be questioned. I have travelled to realms across the seas, and the fairies there are equal. The children learn to read and write, the leaders are elected by the masses and not selected through supposed dreams, and people are encouraged to travel, to learn! The Elders did not ask you to find me, I am sure of it. You went against them, right?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t be allowed to return. They’ll take any solution I give you, and then exile you like they did me.There’s no room for rebellion with them.”

“My father would never allow--”  
  
“Your father would not be told. They’d claim you died on your journey, they’d make a martyr of you, and they would mourn you and move on. _That_ is the way of your kind, fairy, and--”

Blaine’s rant was cut off by a wrinkled hand that snatched him from the air, crushing what little air was left in his lungs. There was no time for Kurt to react, as a second hand caught hold of him.

“My my my,” came the cracked, sandpaper voice of the witch. “What do we have here? Such noisy little birdies, calling me down from my bed. What were you trying to achieve so near to my kitchen, darlings? Did you miss your friends?”

Kurt struggled against arthritic knuckles, digging his teeth into hard flesh, but to no avail. The witch ran a finger along Kurt’s wings, humming to herself. “Such pretty little wings, bird. So bright, so beautiful. They’ll make my skin soooo silky soft, anyone would be a fool not to fall in love with me. And you,” she continued, petting along Blaine’s spine, “well aren’t you an interesting creature. Did you think I hadn’t noticed you, creeping around my house? Just like a little mouse, my dear. I’m sure we’ll find something extra special to do with you. Mmmm, but not just now, my darlings. Old Maeve needs her beauty sleep, so she can recharge. I’ll come take care of you tonight.”

The witch pressed the two of them into a jar, screwed the lid on, and set it beside the pot. “You two have a nice, long sleep. I’ll have your wings at moonrise, they’re so much better _fresh_.”

The vapors hung heavy in the air, weighing down on Kurt’s chest as he tried to force his eyes to stay open. Blaine struggled to his feet as the witch left the kitchen, straining to reach the lid of the jar.

“What are you… doing?” Kurt mumbled, fighting to get upright as well. His wings weren’t moving. He was so tired. It’d be so easy to just curl up. Just for a little while. They had time for a nap before the witch would be back, didn’t they?

“Need to… cast… escape,” Blaine said. “Just need to… touch… wings too...weak”

Kurt just about managed to clasp his hands together, and ducked down to take Blaine’s foot in them. Staggering slightly, he held Blaine up towards the lid. The moment Blaine’s open palms made connection with the lid, the jar cracked open. Glass flew everywhere, cutting them both, but they ignored it as Kurt dropped Blaine. He took hold of Blaine’s hand, and led him to the edge of the shelf, knees trembling as he legs began to give way. “Need to… fly down.”

“Can’t.”

“Try,” Kurt begged, but they were both slipping down the wall, bodies giving up against the vapor.

The world went dark.

When Kurt opened his eyes, he was lying in the grass outside. He stared up at the starry sky, barely visible between the long green fronds. This was a nice way to go, he decided. If he were going to die, he was glad to have a dream like this. He always had loved the stars. He felt a pressure around his left hand, and when he turned his head, he realised Blaine was on the ground beside him.

“Hello, fairy,” Blaine said, squeezing his hand hard.

“Kurt.”

“Huh?”

“My name isn’t fairy. If I’m to call you Blaine, then you should call me Kurt.”

“Okay then. Kurt,” Blaine said, tongue twisting around the word as though he could taste it. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get us away in time.”

“I’m sorry the Elders banished you.”

Blaine laughed. “It’s okay. Best thing that ever happened to me, really. I’m sorry I didn’t try and tell the rest of you what I’ve learned since leaving.”

Kurt was becoming aware of a sharp pain in his back, and he strained to feel his wings. Trying to move his right wing made his whole body shake, and he whimpered. This wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be in pain when asleep.

A chirp in his right ear had Kurt sitting up so fast that he thought might have whiplash. “Pavarotti?”

Another chirp.

“This isn’t a dream, is it?” He asked Blaine, who shook his head with a grin.

“Took you long enough. Your beast saved us, got us outside before the witch’s head had even hit her pillow. He’s a good bird.”

“My wing,” Kurt said worriedly, reaching a hand back to try and feel where the pain was coming from.

“When Maeve jarred us, I think she might have crushed it. I can’t heal it, I already tried while you were out, but I don’t think it’s permanent. Give it time.”

“But the others, we can’t leave them!”

“We won’t,” Blaine soothed. “I promise. You need to go back to the forest to break the spell. Pav is going to stay with me, and at dawn when the witch is in bed, we’re going to start a rescue mission. The vapors don’t seem to affect him, so he’s going to break the fairies out, and bring them to me for healing. I don’t think I can restore their wings, but I can get them back into the fields. They’ll be safe there.”

“Then I need to stay and help!”

“No,” Blaine said. He plucked a single violet flower from the earth, and slowly exhaled, turning the flower into a series of gems before Kurt’s eyes. “This will stop the spell. Plant it in the centre of the forest.”

Blaine reached out to find Kurt’s hand again, and tried to press the flower into it. Kurt stared down at it, the glow too bright against his pale skin, making him appear just as colorless as Blaine. “I don’t know why you’re doing this.”

You said your father was still alive. I presume there are others? They need to be helped. Go and plant the flower, but don’t let the Elders see you.”

Kurt raised a hand to Blaine’s cheek,and very gently ran a finger along the gold of Blaine’s eyes. “They did this to you, didn’t they?”

Blaine turned his head away. “It was a long time ago. Go home, Kurt. There are still people worth saving there.”

 

* * *

 

Sunrises came and went. Fairies were saved, healed, and sent on their way to the fields that would take them home. The witch dug up her floorboards and found no sign of the mouse beneath, and no amount of traps or potions could stop the bird that flew in to rescue the fairies she had captured. By the next full moon, the witch gave up. No new fairies had been caught, and her spell had been broken. Blaine went upstairs one sunrise and found the house abandoned, the boiling pot gone, the remaining fairies still stacked in their jars on the walls. The only sign a witch had ever resided there was the lavender that now grew in the garden, the sickly scent turning Blaine’s stomach whenever he stepped outside.

Blaine could only presume that the flower had worked, and that Kurt had been successful in avoiding the Elders’ wrath. Perhaps his father was of a high enough standing that Kurt’s rebellion had been spared. On the second full moon since Kurt’s departure, Pavarotti disappeared. Blaine had grown fond of the beast, even if he was left tripping over feathers and had had to heighten all of his webs to prevent Pav becoming entangled in them. He was sorry to lose the familiar chirping, but knew better than to go and look for his friend. He suspected Pav had simply gone home.

Blaine couldn’t blame him.

That night, the last few fairies were to be sent home. With their departure, there would be nothing to keep Blaine at the house, except the thin thread that connected him and Kurt. The vain hope that Kurt might return to him.

When the first rays of dawn warmed his skin, Blaine decided, he would take his leave for good. He had friends across the ocean who had been trying to convince him to move for the better part of a century. Perhaps now was the right time.

The last group of fairies were those who had been the sickest, and though there was nothing more Blaine could do for them, he worried that they wouldn’t be strong enough to make the journey home alone. When he gingerly voiced his concerns over their last meal together, the eldest of the group had come up with a solution that he couldn’t refute. As Blaine would be leaving the house anyway, it made sense for him to journey part of the way with the rest of the fairies. If he could get them as far as the outer edges of the forest, that should be enough to reassure him that they were going to be okay--and the forest was on his way to the ocean, anyway.

“How come the Elders said you were scary?” Lilly asked, clutching at Blaine’s hand as they traipsed across the final field before the forest began. Their journey had been uneventful, but long, and had tested Blaine’s trust in these strangers to his limits. Normally if he travelled, he could cast rings to echo off of nearby objects and keep him safe. In a group of this size, there would be too many echoes for him to navigate, and so he had been led along by the hand for almost the entire three day trip.

“Well,” Blaine said, “sometimes when people get scared, they make bad choices.”

“And sometimes people get noble and make choices that are just plain foolish,” said a familiar voice, as chirping filled the air.

Blaine’s head jerked to the left, and Lilly giggled by his side. “We’re at the forest now. Thank you for everything,” she said, tugging him down so she could press a kiss to his cheek, before letting go of his hand and flitting off towards the trees. Blaine was too distracted to even wave goodbye.

“You know, when Pav came back, I was kind of hoping you’d be with him,” Kurt said, voice much closer now as he flew down from the trees.

“He didn’t tell me he was leaving. The Elders let you plant the spell then?”

“Well for starters, I didn’t ask their permission,” Kurt laughed. “I snuck, just like you told me to. Dad’s been protecting me ever since I got home, he’s sort of a big deal around here now. Ever since the fallen started coming back singing your praises, they’ve left the Elders in a bit of a pickle. Apparently they can’t handle a Spinner’s Truth. Dad’s taken over leadership for the time being.”

“And what about you?” Blaine asked.

A hand brushed across Blaine’s cheek, and he smiled into Kurt’s palm. “Oh, you know,” Kurt said lightly, “just keeping out of trouble, mostly. Making sure people get to where they need to be. I guess I’ll have to find something new to do now, though, since you’ve returned the last of them.”

“Any idea what that might be?”

Blaine could feel Kurt’s shrug, and he laughed at how light his chest felt. “I don’t know. I met this fairy a while back, and he was telling me about these fairies in other parts of the world. Ones who spoke different languages, and could read, and it sounded kind of… cool. I was thinking about going to see what all the fuss was about.”

“Sounds like it could be fun.”

“That’s what I thought. Kind of scary though. I could do with a tour guide, to be honest. I mean Pav’s not bad company, but have you ever tried flying with the guy? He can’t even stay in a straight line. We get near the ocean and he’ll think it’s time to go for a swim. Do you happen to know if there’s anyone around who could help me out?”

“Mmm,” Blaine said, “now that you mention it, there is one guy I know. He was planning on leaving tonight, actually. Think you might be interested?”

“Well that depends. Is he cute?”

Blaine blinked. “Um. I don’t… Kurt, I actually don’t know. You remember that I’m blind, right?”

Kurt linked his arms around Blaine’s neck, resting his forehead against Blaine’s as he snorted. “Yup, he’s definitely cute. I guess I have some packing to do, huh?”

“I think so. Need a hand?”

“Well my last bag got impaled by thorns when I went on this quest for a magical flower. Think you could spin me a new one?”

Blaine grimaced. “How long have you been holding onto that line?”

“About five moon phases.”

 

 


End file.
